“I’m sorry, but that’s not enough anymore. Do you even understand what’s going on there? The horrible things we’ve found…” I scoffed, bringing out Thieron. “If you can’t trust me, why am I even bothering to hold on to this?”
Death stilled, her expression shifting into something blank, almost lifeless. “I trust you, Taeral. Don’t ever doubt that. I wouldn’t have asked you to hold it for me if I didn’t.”
“Then trust me with whatever it is you’re still keeping from me!” I snapped. “There is something more here. There is something about the Spirit Bender that you’re not telling me. My friends are facing his followers as we speak, and unless we know exactly what we’re dealing with, it will likely kill them all!”
“I told you. I told you to keep your people out of this because my Reapers were handling it,” Death replied. “It’s not my fault you mingled with the undead despite my clear instructions.”
“Right, right! The living cannot have any contact with those beyond. Yeah, we’ve all heard that crap before. But it was your people who reached out. Seeley and the First Tenners were the ones who got in touch and helped us. And now we’re working together, so instead of droning on about how the rules were broken, how about you help us adapt and move forward?”
“What do you want me to do, Taeral? The Spirit Bender is gone. I cannot do anything in my current state. The mission is still simple: get Unending out of there and bring her to me, so she can break the rest of these wretched seals! Then I can take Thieron back and put an end to whatever the Darklings are doing. I told you, Taeral. I told you to keep your friends away from the Darklings because I’m the only one who can handle them. Everything that’s happening now, it’s because none of you listened! Not you. Not my Reapers. None of you.”
“Forgive me, but you’re wrong.” Time’s interjection stunned Death. He’d always been the quiet one, from what I could tell. He did her bidding and rarely objected. The signs I’d noted earlier were true, then. The Time Master was disagreeing with his maker, and that was a rare occurrence.
“Excuse me?” Death asked, turning to look at him. Dream and Nightmare were speechless, frozen in place and exchanging nervous glances.
“Even now, you’re not telling him or us everything,” Time said. “You’re holding back. You have yet to explain exactly how much information you gave the Spirit Bender. What you taught him. It’s clearly more than any of us have learned from you. The Reapers are working with the living because you refuse to admit the scale of this disaster. You are stubborn, thinking a handful of First Tenners will be enough to resolve something that Spirit took eons to put together. Taeral has every right to be angry, to demand more from you.”
“I cannot believe you’re saying such things…” Death murmured.
“Am I not speaking the truth? Things would go a lot smoother if you just met some of Taeral’s demands. More Reapers on the battleground in Visio, for example, would tip the scales against the Darklings.”
“The Master of Darkness chased our people out of Orvis,” I said. “They’re currently tunneling their way toward the west coast, and Valaine keeps having trouble with her inner darkness. The millions of years that she has spent in that world have taken their toll. Her suffering threatens to wipe out the entire planet.”
“You’ve found her. That’s what matters,” Death replied.
“No, what matters is that we have to set her free, and we have no idea how to do that before she wipes out the whole of Visio, my friends included,” I shot back.
“Let them burn!” Death hissed. “After everything they did to her, it’s the least they deserve!”
“Most of them are innocent,” I said. “They don’t even know their true origins. The Darklings buried the truth. Besides, there are Rimians and Naloreans living there, too. It’s bad enough the Aeternae have been feeding on them for countless generations—now you want them to perish as collateral damage, too? It’s not fair. No, I reject your premise, and I demand that you come clean. There is something you’re not telling us.”
“Mind your tongue, Taeral! I will be here long after you’re dead.” Death pointed an angry finger at me.
“Oh, enough with the cryptic talk!” Dream shot to her feet, shaking. “First of all, when Taeral dies, he’ll become a Reaper, so he’ll definitely be around. Second, I’m with Time and Taeral on this. You haven’t told us everything, and you must. You keep improvising, handing out orders as you go along, because your ego is blinding you. At least admit that you screwed up somewhere along the way. Honestly, it’s the only possible explanation as to why you’re being so absurd and irrational.”
The air thickened as Death’s nerves tightened. We’d managed to piss her off. I could only hope that the remaining five hundred seals would hold her back, since I’d been told more than once that she could be quite temperamental. And for a cosmic force like Death, that could result in instant annihilation for the likes of me.
Before she could respond, Nightmare stood up, joining his twin. “She’s right, Mother,” he said. “We’re toiling away here, working hard to set you free. The Reapers and the living are fighting to bring Unending back to you, to us. We’re all trying to mend the damage that the Spirit Bender has inflicted upon this universe. The least you could do is tell us the truth. We know you’re hiding something else. Just let it out. It’ll feel better, I promise.”
“If you don’t tell us, I swear I’ll leave. You can destroy me when you manage to free yourself. I don’t really care anymore,” Time added. “Seeley nearly got turned into a ghoul. Rudolph and countless others weren’t so lucky, and they are now forever doomed. Our sister has been suffering for almost five million years, stuck in a cycle she can’t break free of. Nothing you’ve done is as bad as what will happen if you keep withholding the truth from us.”
Death sighed deeply, her shoulders slumping as she lowered her gaze for a moment. It felt like forever from where I stood, gripping Thieron tightly. My knuckles were white, skin stretched over bone. I found comfort in knowing that the First Tenners experienced the same frustration I did. Maybe this was the final push that Death needed to tell us everything. I’d known for a while that she’d been holding back. Even during the Hermessi wars, I’d had to drag every word out of her.
“For a long time after I set the First Tenners free, the Spirit Bender stayed close to me,” Death finally said. “I didn’t tell anyone because I cherished those moments more than anything else. He was kind and patient, always by my side, keeping me company while I expanded the Reaper network and watched them all go their own ways. A structure had already developed, and the senior Reapers were very good at their jobs. There was balance in my world, but I was lonely. Spirit understood that, so he kept me company. Out of gratitude, I showed him lesser-known death magic spells.”
“Oh crap. I think I know where this is going,” Dream murmured, hiding her face in her hands. Death shook her head slowly.
“I didn’t know. I think I’ve said this before. I didn’t know he’d turn around and use it against me or any of you,” she said.
“You’ve already told us this. I mean, we’re aware Spirit learned most of his death magic from you,” I replied.
“But you don’t know the extent of the knowledge I gave him. Only Spirit and Unending were granted such access to the very depths of death magic. Unending learned before Spirit… before I… before our argument, followed by her departure. She learned before I even made her siblings, during a time when I’d thought she and I would be enough for this realm. Point is… I took them both back to the primordial layers of my power. I taught them the core elements of my craft, and they were able to use them to create other spells. New seals and rituals. Stuff even I hadn’t thought of.”
“Death magic is made up of building blocks,” Time explained for my sake. “The top of the craft is what you’ve seen for yourself. A cast spell, a seal, a circle to keep us bound, that sort of thing. It all stems from the building blocks, a group of t
en words and a hundred sub-words, as we call them. As First Tenners, the closest we ever got to the very core of death magic was in learning about twenty of the sub-words. Think of them as ingredients. If you know them individually, you can mix them around, either by following an established recipe or by forging new spells and seals. The ten words are at the center of it all.”
“And I taught Unending and Spirit five of those words. Which is why Spirit was able to trap me like this, not to mention what he did to his siblings,” Death replied. “And why we’re having such a hard time freeing ourselves from his spells. Spirit used words and sub-words, most of the latter being familiar to the First Tenners, but the recipes are… different. So breaking them is a bit of a guessing game, combined with a lot of strength.”
I gasped. “Hold on, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Death magic is based on ten words and a hundred sub-words.”
“And thousands of sounds,” Time added. “A regular Reaper only knows the sounds and, if he or she is lucky, a few sub-words. The words are normally occult, hidden from our knowledge. Except for Unending and Spirit, it seems.” He shot Death a reprimanding look.
“What exactly are the implications here?” I asked.
Time ran a hand through his curly hair, his galaxy eyes shimmering with a mixture of anger and anxiety. “It means the possibilities are pretty much endless as far as Spirit’s magic is concerned. And solving every seal he’s cast would take longer than we have, considering the turmoil on Visio. We need Unending to wake up and tell us what she knows. She might not be able to free herself if Spirit went the extra mile on her seals, but she would at least know what words and sub-words he used to bind her.”
A weight settled in my stomach as the whole picture came into focus. Death had handed the nuclear codes to her most dangerous son, and he’d gone ahead and done the worst with them. At least I understood what Death had been holding back, and why her ego had prevented her from admitting it before now. I tried to put myself in her position. Sadly, I had to accept that I probably would’ve done the same thing, given the damage that Spirit had done.
“Is there any connection between death magic and Word magic, since you use these so-called words and sub-words and sounds?” I asked, the connections falling into place in my mind.
“The Word, as you call it, functions on the same elements. Words, sub-words, and sounds. A collection of spoken elements in a language known only to its disciples, with the power to alter the fabric of time and space and beyond,” Death said. “Death magic is dark. Not evil, but dark. Bound to the shadows and the nothingness that exists outside existence. Word magic—or as I prefer to call it, life magic—is light. Not necessarily good, but bound to light and fire and energy, to existence itself. Various other forms of magic stem from these two.”
My head was reeling as I tried to grasp this new information. “What about the witches from the Sanctuary? The jinn? The Lamias and the Druids and their magic?”
“Most of them are distant descendants of the Word. The Sanctuary’s white witches and the jinn are born as such, but they’re bound to life and connected to the Word, even if it never speaks to them,” Death said. “The black witches—now extinct of course—were the same, but with threads from death magic. The combination was dangerous, and it corrupted them over the years. It transformed them. Druid magic also stems from the Word. But like I said, their origins are deeply buried in the past, in a time that no one remembers. My brother was generous with his powers. He handed them out to the living. I only had reign over the dead, and I didn’t see the point of magical ghosts, so I kept death magic to myself… at least until I made the Reapers.”
“So all the witches from all over this cosmos, regardless of their type and power… they’re all linked on an ancient level to the Word. Like the swamp witches,” I said. “Consider my mind blown here.”
Time scoffed. “Death and the Word have been around since the beginning of the universe.”
“Since before, actually,” Death corrected him. “But these are details. Purely trivial and unimportant. What matters is that, in the end, there is nothing I can do to help you against the Darklings, Taeral. I gave Spirit too much knowledge, and I don’t know what he did with it.” She paused, the corners of her mouth dropping. “I’m sorry.”
It was all too much for me. I felt the need to just crouch and take deep breaths as the winter winds intensified, the cold biting my cheeks. Groaning, I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to figure out what else there was to do. My friends on Visio were in trouble, and they needed all the help they could get. But what sort of assistance could I provide now that Death had finally come clean and told us the whole truth about Spirit?
“They’ll have to find a way to set Unending free without killing everybody else,” Death continued, her gaze fixed on the ice at her feet. “Until I have my freedom and Thieron in my hand, I cannot fix anything. And there is no number of Reapers that can help, either. I gave Spirit too much power without considering the repercussions until it was far too late.”
Suddenly, Death started shaking as if lightning surged through her. Gasping, she fell on her side, her whole body convulsing, her limbs twitching. Dream and Nightmare rushed to help her, but they didn’t seem to know how.
“What is going on?” Dream managed, her galaxy eyes wide with horror.
“Why is she… what is this?” Nightmare asked, looking at Time, then at me. I offered a shrug in return, since I was the last person on Aledras who might provide an answer.
Time, on the other hand, was smiling. “Do neither of you recognize this?” he replied.
“What did I say about cryptic talk? Out with it!” Dream snarled.
“Someone is praying to her,” Time said, hands slipping into his pockets. “I haven’t seen this in a very long time. I’ll admit… it’s astonishing.”
Nightmare sucked in a breath. “Holy smokes, Time’s right.” He sat back, watching Death’s convulsions with calmness and a childlike curiosity. “Someone is praying to Death herself. Not some invented goddess from the pits of a distant galaxy. No, Death. Our Death. The true Death.”
“I take it that’s not a regular occurrence?” I asked.
Time shook his head. “A long time ago, before the Reapers were made, Death walked the worlds where there was life. She took it upon herself to reap the souls of the earliest creatures, to send them into the beyond. Back then, Death was young, almost playful, and she occasionally revealed herself to those she considered special.”
“Special, like the people whose spirits she kept close in her palace on Mortis?” I asked.
“Pretty much, yes. Some lived to tell the tale, though, and they worshipped her. They established cults in her name. They prayed to her, knowing who she really was. And whenever they did that, this happened,” Nightmare said. “It looks bad, but it’s not.”
“She always said it felt amazing,” Dream said quietly as the convulsions subsided, and Death appeared to sleep, her lips stretching into a satisfied smile. “Despite the shaking and the passing out, she welcomed each prayer, claiming it made her feel rejuvenated. It’s weird, I know.”
“Mind you, it’s been forever since she’s experienced an actual prayer,” Time said. “I didn’t think there was anyone left in the world of the living to worship Death directly.”
“I take it they all died out?” I said.
Dream sighed. “I don’t even think their planets exist anymore. All things come to an end, remember?”
With a deep inhalation, Death opened her eyes, and I nearly got sucked into the endless darkness that lay inside them, stretching infinitely beyond everything known and unknown. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, tucking a lock of silky black hair behind her ear. We all watched her quietly, waiting for her response.
“I… I haven’t felt like this since… I can’t remember,” she whispered, gradually returning to reality.
“You received a prayer, didn’t you?” Dream asked, and Dea
th gave her a faint nod. “Who from?”
Death looked at me. “Tristan. It was amplified by Soul and the other First Tenners. I could hear them, loud and clear, as though they were right here with me.”
“What? Tristan? How?” I croaked, my heart leaping.
“I guess it was an act of desperation. Something is awfully wrong on Visio, and they’re losing control of the Unending’s misery,” Death said. “I should’ve seen this coming…”
“Dammit. What can I do? What can we do?” I asked. My feet were already burning. I was itching to get out of here and head straight to Visio. Death had wanted me to keep Thieron away from the Darklings, but I felt like I’d be of better use there than anywhere else. Sometimes the benefit outweighed the risk.
Death gave her Reapers a glance. “I’ll give you Time, Dream, and Nightmare.”
“Yes!” Nightmare exclaimed, raising his fists to the sky as if he’d won some kind of prize. His enthusiasm was adorable.
“They will be better than nothing,” Death said to me. “I’m sorry I cannot do more. I will trust you with my first children, and I will trust you with handling Thieron over there without getting any of us in deeper trouble. Under no circumstances can you lose my weapon. Do you understand me?”
“Taeral doesn’t even need to show himself unless he absolutely has to,” Time replied. “His wielding of Thieron is nowhere near proficient. It’s better not to risk it. But I can help my sister, Unending. Dream and Nightmare, too. They’re more than happy to do what they can.”
Death nodded once, shifting her focus back to me. “Go to Visio. Be careful.”
I didn’t dare to feel enthusiastic about any of this. There wasn’t much I could make of the whole prayer incident either, except that Tristan and the others were in a whole lot of trouble. Death had told Spirit too much. She’d taught him things that were—from what I understood—too dangerous and volatile, and Spirit had used this knowledge against her and against the other Reapers.
A Shade of Vampire 84: A Memory of Time Page 7
